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Big pharma veers to the left

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This election cycle, though, is the first in which the drug companies are publicly showing their hand through their political giving.

It’s not a full sprint to the left. Rather, it’s almost as though the industry has planted itself on a neutral base — still in the game but on neither side.

Thus far in the 2008 election cycle, the drug companies have given a total of $17 million, with half ($8.5 million) going to Democrats and half ($8.5 million) going to the old allies.

The reason for the hesitancy, of course, is that it’s not a natural move for the industry. And it’s still not at all clear the drugmakers will be welcomed and rewarded for shifting alliances.

Leading Democrats still hammer the drugmakers, fashioning them as political bogeymen working against the interests of moderate- to low-income people in need of affordable drugs. Democratic-backed congressional legislation includes government negotiated pricing and drug importation — two issues hotly opposed by the industry.

If Democrat Barack Obama wins the White House and joins with a Democratic majority in Congress to push through those measures, the industry may still swing back to the Republicans, one industry insider predicted.

But even as the pharmaceutical companies hedge on Capitol Hill, they’re moving definitively in the presidential race away from McCain.

As one senior drug company executive said, “Part of the Republican base has been chipped off because McCain wanted to run to the middle.”

Indeed, many executives might have swallowed hard after McCain’s primary debate performance and maintained their partisan preference if that were as bad as it got.

Turns out, it wasn’t. Many executives were stunned when McCain released a new advertisement crowing about how he “took on the drug industry.”

And there went their giving.

Campaign donation records show that drug company executives donated a combined $1.4 million to the two leading Democratic presidential candidates — $758,724 to Obama and $632,219 to his vanquished primary rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Readers' Comments (33)

My wife works with a company that works with pharmaceutical company software. They receive various messages periodically regarding various health issues. The headline issue was regarding McCain's health care plan. http://www.ahiphiwire.org/News... The most important issue I got out of this was, after all the healthy people drop their company health plans, insurance companies would be left with only the very sick. Eventually, they would not be able to operate anymore. So over time, no more company health insurance plans would exist. At that point, the very sick would not be able to find anyone to insure them, leaving us in a worse situation we are in now. Bottom line is, McCain's plan would completely destroy health care in the U.S. for a large percentage of the U.S. The article is worth reading and you can come to numerous conclusions about various issues brought up in the article. I can see why the health industry is against McCain and so should everyone else be. His plan would destroy heath care for most Americans and we would see a disastrous situation with the medical industry.

Oh yea I really feel good about our team. McCain is totally clueless on this bailout idea and she is a no name governor of a state of 50 people and a million elk and caribou. This Wall Street mess is the end of us for four years. He has dimentia or something

Indeed, many executives might have swallowed hard after McCain’s primary debate performance and maintained their partisan preference if that were as bad as it got.

Turns out, it wasn’t. Many executives were stunned when McCain released a new advertisement crowing about how he “took on the drug industry.”

McCAIN * PALIN taking on the big bad guys .

Actually, the reason the executives were stunned by McClown's "new advertisement" was because his "new" position amounted to a complete about face for McCain on that particular issue. If one of your best friends turned against you after 25 years, you'd be stunned as well. Just politics, my friends...

In any event, this new persona may end up haunting him - after all, McClown looks like he could use all the big pharma he can get, no?!?

All the Congressional Republicans who are having a hard time raising money from the drug industry should thank Chuck Grassley, with his grandstanding and phony "investigations." Funny, he doesn't seem to get as upset about Big Agriculture, which is now under investigation for price fixing/gouging of American consumers according to today's WSJ. But then again - shame on the GOP leadership for not controlling him and others.

This doesn't surprise me. It goes beyond McCain, as Grassley, Pawlenty, and Schwarzenegger have been torturing the pharmaceutical industry for years. Why wouldn't they be exacting some revenge on Republicans?

I have been surveying the readers of Pharma Marketing News and Pharma Marketing Blog and, to date, 53.7% of respondents said they would vote for Obama vs. 35.4% for McCain. Most of these respondents either are employed by pharma companies or work for agencies/vendors that service the industry. I invite everyone to participate in this short survey, which can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/3ugcmm

As a former Pharma employee the industry will go the route of most profit and least resistance. McCain is planning to cut costs which means loss of $$$ to the pharma industry...

For example the senior drug benefit is very profitable to the health industry which means if partial universal healthcare without cost controls is implemented it will be a big credit to the industry but a major debt to the US economy.

My wife works with a company that works with pharmaceutical company software. They receive various messages periodically regarding various health issues.

If your wife works with the drug companies, then she works with the devil. These companies shower the doctors with gifts, food, "beautiful" drug reps, literally blowing millions and millions each year to secure use of their products, you know, the ones that counter the effects of one of their other drugs, that counters the effects of another drug, etc, etc, etc. My wife works in a doctor's office, and she doesn't even pack a lunch, the drug reps bring gourmet meals every day. They also sell Fen-Fen when they get too fat.

You citing a drug company rag as proof of anything noble is like Ted Kennedy doing a commercial against drunk driving. Nice try, "Liberal dissenter of freedom"

Ms. Cummings: "A notable holdout: pharmaceutical company executives who have spent millions ? sometimes secretly ? over the past decade protecting the Republicans in the White House and Congress." Where is this secret support for Republicans? You offer nothing here that supports that inflammatory charge. I suppose they could have called the United Seniors Association something like Big Pharma United Against Democrats & Republicans Who Demonize Big Pharma, but if Democrats started launching "investigations" as soon as they had the power to do so, it sure doesn't look like Big Pharma was all that stealthy. "This election cycle, though, is the first in which the drug companies are publicly showing their hand through their political giving." Again, where's this secrecy you're selling? The hand they were playing back in 2002 seems pretty clear from the "political giving" you yourself just laid out, and the shifting numbers are the very basis of the story you're telling. When your assertions contradict your own reporting, a trip back to the drawing board is in order. JM Hanes